Why Is Infant Mortality Higher in the United States than in Europe?

The United States has higher infant mortality than peer countries. In this paper, we combine microdata from the United States with similar data from four European countries to investigate this US infant mortality disadvantage. The US disadvantage persists after adjusting for potential differential reporting of births near the threshold of viability. While the importance of birth weight varies across comparison countries, relative to all comparison countries the United States has similar neonatal (<1 month) mortality but higher postneonatal (1–12 months) mortality. We document similar patterns across census divisions within the United States. The postneonatal mortality disadvantage is driven by poor birth outcomes among lower socioeconomic status individuals. (JEL I12, I14, I32, J14)National Institute on Aging (Grant Number T32-AG000186)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant Number 1151497

A Symposium on Social Justice Feminism: Introduction

This special issue of the Freedom Center Journal, includes a set of truly diverse and interdisciplinary pieces, each individually interpreting and performing social justice feminism in original and unique ways. Collectively, these pieces demonstrate how SJF can be constructively employed across academic disciplines and through lived realities and, further, how SJF can be used to connect theory to our own individual and collective advocacy and activism

From Crossing Campus to Crossing Continents: Faculty, Chair, and Global Partner Perspectives on an International Sabbatical

A sabbatical – a period of paid leave granted to faculty for research or study - is a construct in higher education that has experienced ebbs and flows in its favorability, though there are persistent arguments that it is important for research-active faculty (Pietsch, 2011). Early career faculty are focused on achieving tenure as this is high stakes at most institutions. Once tenure is achieved, the next goalpost is full professor. The day-to-day responsibilities of faculty can distract from and dilute efforts aimed at strategic planning, long-term planning, and reflection necessary to achieve this level of promotion. So it follows that faculty place a very high value on sabbatical leave time for its impact on career progression, with one study ranking sabbaticals second only to successful external funding (Smith et al., 2016). Faculty and institutions can benefit from sabbaticals through collaborative ideation to reveal new research ideas, development of new expertise, strategic dissemination efforts, support of student research, and much more. Individual faculty members who have engaged in a sabbatical report stronger engagement with colleagues and sense of social responsibility, with a higher tendency towards teamwork, creativity, and innovation (Shirbagi & Gholami, 2020). Sabbatical could also serve as a tool to combat imposter syndrome and reduce the gap between academics and non-academics through “experimental” sabbaticals (e.g., a year of consulting) (Bothello & Roulet, 2019). It is important to note, though, that benefits to students are not inherent in sabbaticals, as one now-dated study reported no difference in student evaluations of teaching before and after faculty sabbaticals (Miller & Bai, 1998). Faculty overwhelmingly agreed that sabbatical improved their attitude, making them a better faculty member (Miller & Kang, 2006)

A Symposium on Social Justice Feminism: Introduction

This special issue of the Freedom Center Journal, includes a set of truly diverse and interdisciplinary pieces, each individually interpreting and performing social justice feminism in original and unique ways. Collectively, these pieces demonstrate how SJF can be constructively employed across academic disciplines and through lived realities and, further, how SJF can be used to connect theory to our own individual and collective advocacy and activism

The effectiveness of heat preparation and alleviation strategies for cognitive performance: A systematic review

A range of occupational and performance contexts (e.g. military personnel operations, emergency services, sport) require the critical maintenance of cognitive performance in environmentally challenging environments. Several reviews exist which evaluate the effectiveness of heat preparation strategies to facilitate physical performance. To date, no review has explored the usefulness of heat preparation strategies for cognitive performance. Therefore, this systematic review aimed to evaluate a range of interventions for the maintenance of cognitive performance, during or following active or passive heat exposure. Studies to be included were assessed by two authors reviewing title, abstract, and full-text. Forty articles were identified which met the inclusion criteria. Interventions were categorised into chronic (i.e. acclimation/acclimatisation) and acute strategies (i.e. hydration, cooling, supplementation, psychological). The results indicate that medium-term consecutive heat acclimation may mitigate some cognitive deficits under heat stress, although heat acclimation effectiveness could be influenced by age. Further, pre-cooling appears the most effective cooling method for maintaining cognitive performance under heat stress, although results were somewhat ambiguous. The hydration literature showed that the most effective hydration strategies were those which individualised electrolyte fortified fluid volumes to match for sweat loss. Limited research exploring psychological interventions indicates that motivational self-talk could be facilitative for maintaining cognitive skills following exercise in hot conditions. These findings can be used to help inform strategies for maintaining critical cognitive and decision-making skills in hot environments

Sexual Coercion and Sexual Violence at First Intercourse Associated with Sexually Transmitted Infections

BACKGROUND: Violence against women has been associated with subsequent risky sexual behaviors and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). We explored whether sexual coercion or violence at first intercourse was associated with self-reported STIs. METHODS: Using nationally representative data from the 2006 to 2010 National Survey of Family Growth, we analyzed female respondents aged 18 to 44 (n = 9466) who answered questions on coercion at first intercourse (wantedness, voluntariness, and types of force used) and STIs using logistic regression analyses. We explored degrees of coercion, which we label as neither, sexual coercion (unwanted or nonphysical force), or sexual violence (involuntary or physical force). RESULTS: Eighteen percent of US women reported sexual coercion, and 8.4% experienced sexual violence at first intercourse. Compared with women who experienced neither, the odds of reporting an STI was significantly greater for women who experienced sexual coercion (odds ratio, 1.27; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-1.60), after controlling for all variables. The association between sexual violence at first intercourse and STIs (odds ratio, 1.20; 95% confidence interval, 0.91-1.57) seemed to be attenuated by subsequent sexual violence. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding that women who reported a variety of coercive sexual experiences are more likely to have contracted an STI may indicate a need to focus on the broader continuum of sexual violence to fully understand the impact of even subtle forms of violence on women\u27s health. In addition, focusing on subsequent sexual behaviors and other negative consequences remains important to improve the sexual health of women who have experienced coercive sexual intercourse

Unsupervised discovery of temporal sequences in high-dimensional datasets, with applications to neuroscience.

Identifying low-dimensional features that describe large-scale neural recordings is a major challenge in neuroscience. Repeated temporal patterns (sequences) are thought to be a salient feature of neural dynamics, but are not succinctly captured by traditional dimensionality reduction techniques. Here, we describe a software toolbox-called seqNMF-with new methods for extracting informative, non-redundant, sequences from high-dimensional neural data, testing the significance of these extracted patterns, and assessing the prevalence of sequential structure in data. We test these methods on simulated data under multiple noise conditions, and on several real neural and behavioral datas. In hippocampal data, seqNMF identifies neural sequences that match those calculated manually by reference to behavioral events. In songbird data, seqNMF discovers neural sequences in untutored birds that lack stereotyped songs. Thus, by identifying temporal structure directly from neural data, seqNMF enables dissection of complex neural circuits without relying on temporal references from stimuli or behavioral outputs

Climate-driven regime shifts in a mangrove-salt marsh ecotone over the past 250 years.

Climate change is driving the tropicalization of temperate ecosystems by shifting the range edges of numerous species poleward. Over the past few decades, mangroves have rapidly displaced salt marshes near multiple poleward mangrove range limits, including in northeast Florida. It is uncertain whether such mangrove expansions are due to anthropogenic climate change or natural climate variability. We combined historical accounts from books, personal journals, scientific articles, logbooks, photographs, and maps with climate data to show that the current ecotone between mangroves and salt marshes in northeast Florida has shifted between mangrove and salt marsh dominance at least 6 times between the late 1700s and 2017 due to decadal-scale fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of extreme cold events. Model projections of daily minimum temperature from 2000 through 2100 indicate an increase in annual minimum temperature by 0.5 °C/decade. Thus, although recent mangrove range expansion should indeed be placed into a broader historical context of an oscillating system, climate projections suggest that the recent trend may represent a more permanent regime shift due to the effects of climate change